Jurgen Klopp on how talks with Mohamed Salah ended penalty drought

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Jurgen Klopp on how talks with Mohamed Salah ended penalty drought

Jurgen Klopp has revealed how a 'grown-up' conversation with Mohamed Salah has led to the Egyptian re-finding his mojo from the penalty spot.

The Liverpool superstar scored his second penalty of the week in the 1-0 win over Fulham - having also scored one against Tottenham on Sunday - after missing two consecutive spot kicks at club level.

Salah missed crucial penalties in March and April against Bournemouth and Arsenal respectively, with the latter being drilled embarrassingly wide in front of the Kop end.

Speaking after the win over over Fulham, Klopp admitted a frank conversation with Salah has helped the forward work through his penalty difficulties.

He said: “We had a conversation and he wanted to stay the penalty taker. We had a normal conversation about it. I said, ‘OK, yeah, you are’.

“You don’t feel great in that moment, that’s what he said: I don’t feel right in that moment because the pressure obviously increases with the penalties you miss. Then Fab [Fabinho], or Trent [Alexander-Arnold], or whoever is two and three, give the ball to them, but that’s now he smashed the jigsaw, or whatever, the destiny again, and turned it around.

“This today was a super penalty I would say - that’s really clear. So, I think with all the goals Mo scored, we cannot just judge it with two missed [and] go away from it. That’s what I meant when I said we will talk about it. I know you understand when I said we’ll talk about it [that] I tell him, ‘You are off.’ But it was a conversation between two grown-up men.”

“He enjoys these situations, the problem is before he missed a penalty we didn't have [one] for 28 games or so. We train that, obviously, we have people for it, but that's a special situation. You cannot [prepare for it], 28 games is like four years...it's forever.

“And you cannot remember any kind of pedal and stuff like this. You go there, and then you miss it, you can still finish it off, but then you miss it and that doesn't feel great. So, this little break after the Arsenal pen, we talk, shake it off, if you want, and we go from there. I think that's absolutely the right thing to do.”